


When His World Broke

by ununquadius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Parents, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family, Gen, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Squib!Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 04:31:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17542736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ununquadius/pseuds/ununquadius
Summary: Draco knew he was special: he was a wizard, he was a pureblood, and he was a Malfoy. Only he wasn't a wizard.





	When His World Broke

**Author's Note:**

> The wonderful breathofmine asked the other day on Discord “What if Draco had been a Squib?” I liked the prompt a lot and wrote this. I plan for a longer fic, but I was impatient to share it, so take the first part! 
> 
> A big thank you to matsinko for being an amazing beta. 
> 
> Hope you like it!

Draco knew he was special: he was a wizard, he was a pureblood, and he was a Malfoy. He was above anyone else. He knew one day he’d go off to Hogwarts—to Slytherin—and nothing made him happier than imagining his life in the castle.

He first suspected something was wrong when he was seven and listened to his parents talk about his lack of magic.

“He’s still little, Lucius,” Mother said.

“But he should have shown some magic by now. This isn’t normal.”

“We’ll wait and see. He has time.”

He hadn’t thought about his magic before. He assumed he had magic because his parents were a witch and a wizard. That surely made him a wizard too. That's how the world worked. He didn’t think he could be different from his parents, but if Father thought he should have done magic by that moment, it meant something was wrong with him.

From that day on, he tried to do magic — he tried to move objects, to blow up things, to set the armoire on fire, but nothing worked. He told himself that he had time, he had years until Hogwarts.

By the day he turned eleven years old, he hadn’t been able to conjure any magic. His hope didn’t die though and he still waited for his letter until the last day of August.

When darkness covered the sky, he cried.

“You’re a Squib, sweetheart,” Mother said, caressing his hair while he laid in his bed, face hidden in a pillow and tears running down his face.

“I want to be a wizard.”

“We know. We wish you were a wizard too, but you're not,” Father said from his place at Draco’s side. “We’ll tell everyone that you are a wizard and that you're studying abroad. In Durmstrang. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father,” Draco’s muffled voice came.

“You can't tell anybody about you being a Squib, alright?” Father went on.

Draco nodded into the pillow.

“We’ll hire tutors, so you continue your education. Enough of these tears now.”

And so his life continued in the secluded rooms of the Manor. He learned History, French, Latin, Greek, Politics, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy. After his classes, he went to the gardens and often found himself thinking about what his life could have been, if he were normal. Mother's efforts at making him feel like he was like them didn’t matter; Father's words about being proud of Draco didn't matter —he could see the disappointment in their eyes. He knew why they didn't throw parties anymore, why he wasn’t allowed to invite his friends over or to talk to them, or why he was never invited to their dinners. He became lonely, isolated in his room with only books and his cat for company.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
